Rants & Reviews

06 August 2013

Near Disaster: Saved by Muscle Memory

August 5, 2013: A freaky accident nearly took me down
today. But first, some background: I spent 20 years as a martial arts
professional. I founded and was head instructor at one of the country’s first
women’s gym’s and then ran my two Tae Kwon Do institutes. Throughout my career
I studied many other styles in my attempt to become the best fighter I could
be. When not a single solitary boxing club would accept a woman, I studied
boxing with a former Golden Gloves champion who had been interned in the
US camps for Japanese-Americans during the war. He was still so quietly furious in the 70s that
I think he took me on privately as a kind of revenge for having been stripped
of his Golden Gloves titles back then.

I studied a bit of Aikido with a gentle man whose gym I rented
part-time; I studied Kyokoshinkai Kan full-contact with the founder of martial
arts in Israel; and I studied judo with a dear friend Martyn Miller, another
national champion. One of the things one learns in judo is to slap the ground
with your hand/arm to break a fall. I remember when Martyn had a motorbike
accident: he was hit, thrown up in the air, but saved himself by slapping the
ground as he hit.

Today, as a tourist in Chicago, I am walking with Barry
up the stairs of what used to be the imposing Chicago Public Library, but which
is now the Chicago Cultural Center. The steps are massive stone steps with a
large lip on each – protruding, but unseen. I catch my foot, losing my shoe
(trainers), but before I register what has happened, I hear the thunderous sound
of flesh slapping stone. I have fallen face-first, diagonally up the steps,
slapping the stone with both hands really hard, thereby muting the force with
which my knees collide with the edge of another step.

For several moments I don’t move. I’m 65. What have I
broken? What have I done to myself? I twist in order to sit down while Barry
hovers. I look at the bright red palms of my hands and suddenly realize that my
judo slap has saved me from possible broken bones and a smashed face. I’m
bruised, I’m freaked, most of all I am shocked, but I’m okay.

We sit there for some time while I recover my equilibrium
and then go inside. My original goal had been to pee, so I go do that while
Barry searches for some ice. We are on a schedule with press tickets to a boat
tour to view the architecture of Chicago from the river, so we have to go. An
hour later, seated on the boat, I realize that no one on that incredibly busy
corner, no one among the many going up and down those steps stopped to ask if I
was okay. No one offered to help.

I’m lucky to have had so much good training in my life
and astonished that despite the fact that I retired from the fight game in 1991
and have not done a judo fall for 22 years, my body flashed into automatic response
and my muscle memory – that sweet little protein – did the trick. The lessons
to be learned? One, stay upright. Two, as I’ve taught hundreds and hundreds of
women: keep your hands free. I wear a cross-body bag or sometimes a backpack,
but never a handbag. And finally, while you’re upright, go work out and learn
some shit.

Thanks Shirley and Joan. I'm fine - just the foot is sore where it caught on the lip of the step. I spent the day walking on it so it is complaining and I'm about to put it up and rest it. Thanks again.

Similar ground-slapping experience saved my face and head from extinction on the main drag in Belfast, Northern Ireland, years back. A dozen people ran to me from all directions, wanting to pick me up. I thanked them, said I wanted to take inventory of my bones first, and they all walked away. One man went over to a shop window and pretended to be window shopping. Actually, he was watching my reflection in the window and came over when I got up, offered to walk me back to my hotel. In Boston people would have assumed I was drunk and stepped over my prostrate form.

Glad you are ok sue, arnica excellent for bruising. You are still a brilliant martial artist sue, that spirit never goes!I your article brings back wonderful memories of being in your Dojo in Tel Aviv. I hope my muscle memory stays too for the future as my active martial art career begins to go into retirement after 24 years. X

Miriam, reminds me to the time I tripped in full business dress on the way to the Tube shortly after I moved to London. I just laid flat watching all the shoes go by without even slowing down. The guy watching your reflection - sounds like a good person.

Of course I was thinking of you as I was writing the piece, dear Kaz. I need to call you. I'm planning on getting to London mid-September and am dying to see you. Right now though I'm out of town. Email me your latest landline if you have one.